crop

 
Pronunciation: /krɒp/

noun

  • 1a cultivated plant that is grown on a large scale commercially, especially a cereal, fruit, or vegetable: the main crops were oats and barley
  • an amount of produce harvested at one time: a heavy crop of fruit
  • an abundance of something, especially a person’s hair: he had a thick crop of wiry hair
  • the total number of young farm animals born in a particular year on one farm: failure to observe sound practice leads to a lamb crop at weaning of around 50-60 per cent
  • 2a group or amount of related people or things appearing or occurring at one time: the current crop of politicians
  • 3a hairstyle in which the hair is cut very short: she has her hair cut in a short crop
  • 5a pouch in a bird’s gullet where food is stored or prepared for digestion: the parent waxbill partially digests food in its crop
  • an organ resembling a pouch in an insect or earthworm.
  • 6the entire tanned hide of an animal.

verb (crops, cropping, cropped)

  • 1 [with object] cut (something, especially a person’s hair) very short: (as adjective cropped) cropped blonde hair
  • (of an animal) bite off and eat the tops of (plants): the horse was gratefully cropping the grass
  • cut the edges of (a photograph) in order to produce a better picture or to fit a given space: you can always crop the picture afterwards
  • 2 [with object] harvest (plants or their produce) from a particular area: hay would have been cropped several times through the summer
  • sow or plant (land) with plants that will produce food or fodder, especially on a large commercial scale: the southern areas are cropped in cotton (as adjective, with submodifier cropped) intensively cropped areas
  • [no object] (of land or a plant) yield a harvest of plants or produce: the parsley will need protection to continue cropping through the winter

Phrasal Verbs

crop out

(of rock) appear or be exposed at the surface of the earth: high hills are found where the igneous rocks of eastern South Uist crop out

crop up

appear, occur, or come to one’s notice unexpectedly: some urgent business had cropped up

Origin:

Old English, of Germanic origin; related to German Kropf. From Old English to the late 18th century there existed a sense 'flower head, ear of corn', giving rise to crop (sense 1 of the noun) and senses referring to the top of something, whence crop (sense 4 of the noun)